• MrBeast spent $14 million building a "city" for his "Beast Games" show.
• The show, premiering on December 19, features 1,000 contestants and a $5 million prize.
• Controversy has surrounded the show with complaints about conditions and a potential lawsuit.

MrBeast has shared some photos of the "city" he built as part of his upcoming game show, "Beast Games," which he says cost $14 million.

"We spent $14,000,000 building a city in a field for the contestants in Beast Games to live and compete in," MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, wrote on X, alongside four photos of the set. "December 19th is almost here 🥰"

Donaldson, YouTube's biggest star with 335 million subscribers, has already shared some details about the scale of production on "Beast Games."

In an interview with fellow YouTubers KSI and Logan Paul, Donaldson revealed he'd "spent way more than $100 million" on the show and recently shared that the production had broken 40 world records.

Amazon has also promoted "Beast Games" as "the world's largest live gameshow" with the "biggest single prize in the history of television and streaming" of $5 million.

It premiers on Prime Video on December 19 and is supposed to kick-start Amazon's video ad sales efforts by attracting a wide audience and appealing to advertisers.

In one X post, Donaldson was asked how he planned to make up the money he spent on "Beast Games."

"The goal is to make the best content possible not make money," he replied.

In the trailer, which dropped on December 6, Donaldson promised that "Beast Games" would be "the most insane competition show you've ever seen" with 1,000 contestants. Clips included footage of the $5 million grand prize, a massive pirate ship, monster trucks, Navy seals, and stunts.

One of the photos Donaldson shared was "a render of the city," which had a moat running around the outside.

"We ran out of time and didn't get around to building the moat," he said in response to one query on X. "But everything else is accurate."

The set of the specially built "city" is in Toronto, CBC reported in September.

Toronto City Hall's film and entertainment department confirmed to the outlet that it was the site but declined to comment further for "confidentiality reasons."

Donaldson's rep confirmed the city's site as Toronto and told BI that Donaldson donated many of the goods used in the shoot, including mattresses, sleeping bags, and clothing, to local organizations afterward.

Paramedics and firefighters confirmed to CBC that they were aware of the production, and police told the outlet that its department's explosive disposal unit was consulted.

CBC drone footage showed a large cement tower and two rows of single-story houses surrounded by a red wall.

"Beast Games" aligns with Amazon's strategy of increasing spending on entertainment and sports content.

The show's coverage has not been entirely smooth sailing, though. Both Donaldson and conditions on set have faced bad press.

Some contestants have complained about inadequate living conditions, injuries, insufficient hygiene on set, and being subjected to sexism in a New York Times report. Five contestants are seeking to file a class-action lawsuit, though a rep for Donaldson told BI nobody has been served yet.

Amazon declined to comment on the lawsuit to BI. A spokesperson for Donaldson previously told BI that Amazon was not involved in the Las Vegas round of the show, where many of the allegations surfaced, which was "a promotional video shoot."

The spokesperson also said that this shoot was "unfortunately complicated by the CrowdStrike incident, extreme weather, and other unexpected logistical and communications issues."

Much of the rumors and allegations directed at Donaldson and the show went unanswered for months until Donaldson appeared on YouTube Oompaville's channel to address everything at once on November 23.

Donaldson said he could not address some of the allegations due to legal proceedings, but he described some of the claims about injuries on set as "disinformation."

• Brittany Broski focuses on community over follower count for lasting influence.
• Broski rose to fame in 2019 with a viral kombucha video and now has millions of followers.
• What she thinks will last in a crowded influencer market is authenticity and reliability.

Social media star Brittany Broski says she has always leaned into building her community over worrying about her follower count.

"What do numbers really determine when you can buy followers, when you can buy a check mark now?" Broski told Business Insider.

"I think the real power comes from community, the people that you can bring together."

Broski, whose real name is Brittany Tomlinson, rose to fame in 2019 following a mega-viral moment in which she tasted kombucha for the first time.

She now has 7.5 million TikTok followers and over 2 million subscribers on YouTube.

Broski, 27, now also has two podcasts: Royal Court, where she interviews celebrities in a free-flowing format, and The Broski Report, where she muses on whatever she is thinking about that week.

She thinks that influencers who are authentic and build loyal communities online will have more staying power, even if that means those communities are niche.

The influencer gap

There's some debate over whether brands still prefer to work with micro-influencers after engagement became the pinnacle in the past few years.

Some surveys and experts think things are going backward, and superstars are being favored once more, leading smaller creators to feel pushed out.

Others, however, see creators with small but mighty audiences thriving again in the near future.

Ultimately, algorithms change, and what is popular today may not be tomorrow.

Broski's advice for creators is to lean into what makes them different.

Broski felt she had been "pigeonholed as a meme" at the start of her internet career as the "kombucha girl," and she wanted to distance herself from this as soon as possible.

Instead, she strived to "build out an identifiable brand."

Community and connection

Community, both on and offline, has always been important to Broski. She told BI that's one reason she partnered with White Claw this holiday season in a campaign that focuses on making quality time with friends and family.

On Broski's shows, she also strives to "share a human moment with people" rather than repeat the same questions celebs receive at press junkets.

"More than anything, people just want to be heard and seen and felt like they're known," she said.

In Royal Court, Broski often asks her guests, including Saoirse Ronan and Daisy Edgar-Jones, to "prove their worth to earn a spot on Lady Broski's coveted small council" and has them dress up in medieval costumes.

"I really like leaning into this sort of silly nature of, I'm going to make you wear a cape and a hat, and you're going to like it," she said. "You get to see that person's personality more than just, let's talk about your work."

Broski thinks what is going to last is "authenticity and reliability."

"Those two words are so overused and so bastardized, but it doesn't take away from the core meaning," she said.

Her advice to creators is that people want to watch someone they relate to, Broski said — someone who makes them think, "She's just like me."

"That's all people want," she said. "So don't overthink it."

The audience also just wants the people they watch to be themselves.

"That seems so cliché, but what else can you do?" Broski said. "If you try to be anyone else, you're doomed to fail."

• Influencers must adapt to keep up in an oversaturated market.
• Audiences are tired of ads and seek authentic, expertise-driven content.
• Platforms like VSCO and Reddit have gained traction, with users craving genuine communities.

A splintered social media world is on the horizon — and it's paving the way for a new, more authentic breed of influencer.

"People are just trying to find authentic communities," Eric Wittman, CEO of photo-editing app VSCO, told Business Insider.

Wittman pointed to Reddit's surge in users and skyrocketing earnings as an example. Bluesky's user base has also risen in recent weeks to 21 million, and Mastodon is seeing more modest growth, with about 90,000 new sign-ups this month, according to its CEO.

In a white paper published earlier last year, Chand Rajendra-Nicolucci, who researches digital public infrastructure at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said there's a reboot taking place.

He believes that will include the rise of "very small online platforms" that host the kind of intimate conversations that are lacking on today's major platforms.

"It will create a lot more fragmentation in the market," said Wittman. "It's going to be more interest-driven and more community-driven, which I think is healthy."

Trust is key, losing it is costly

Audiences appear to be more discerning. Some are getting cynical about sponsored posts and bored of being sold to, especially when products or brands don't align with their values.

For example, TikTok can feel like a pseudo-shopping channel where every other video seems to be an ad.

Kate Smoothy, an SEO specialist and the founder and director of Webhive Digital, is also a content creator with 47,000 TikTok followers. She told BI she only partners with brands that she believes in because she values her audience's trust.

"As soon as you lose that trust, you may as well kiss the whole content creator thing goodbye," she said.

Smoothy said she sees things changing, with different "tiers" of content creators emerging from the industry's oversaturation. The top ones will have prioritized their community and built trust with their audience.

"Ultimately, the 'lower down' creators will struggle to establish themselves or pivot as the industry adapts to new platforms and changes in trends," Smoothy said.

New social media horizons

Lucy Edgerley, the head of influence at the global social media agency Born Social, told BI that Gen Zers, in particular, are craving creativity, entertainment, and inspiration.

Some may choose alternative platforms like VSCO, Bluesky, and Mastodon over the major players of Instagram, TikTok, and X.

Others are following their favorite creators to subscription services like Substack or Patreon.

"Platforms like Pinterest, which foster ideas-driven content, are thriving because they align with this demand," she said.

Wittman said that 57% of VSCO's user base is between the ages of 18 and 24, and the app is seeing a million new sign-ups a month. He pointed to the lack of ads on the platform — none if users opt for the paid service, which starts at a monthly fee of $2.50.

"We are very restrictive on who can advertise on our platform," Wittman said. "When we do these brand partnerships, we want to make sure that it's a brand that kind of suits our principles and philosophies as well."

Young people who have grown up with social media are learning the lessons about the dark side of it — the mental health toll, the bullying, and the over-consumerism — the hard way, he said.

"They're looking for healthier places to go to where they're not feeling manipulated," he said.

Intellectual influencers will thrive

Not everyone sees it this way. While newer platforms such as Threads and Bluesky are reporting impressive numbers, Kim Murray, the founder of the influencer marketing agency Virality Boost, told BI that many influencers are likely to stay put with what they know.

"Most creators find it challenging to build and maintain audiences across an ever-expanding array of platforms," she said.

Audiences are already more selective than they used to be, she added, so influencers will have to evolve wherever they are, regardless of their follower count.

"This shift signals a transformation rather than an endpoint," Murray said. "The real opportunity lies in how influencers adapt to meet this heightened selectivity by focusing on distribution strategies that deliver genuine value to both audiences and brands."

Wittman said the bar has been raised, and he sees a move toward "intellectual influencers" emerging, where people gravitate to creators who offer something unique.

"They actually want experts," he said. "They want it to be fun, and they want it to be creative. They don't want just some crazy infomercial."

Edgerley agreed we're witnessing a shift. Despite the success of YouTube shorts and TikTok, long-form storytelling is on the rise, she said, suggesting users want deeper engagement rather than endless scrolling.

"Ultimately, it's about meeting audiences with humor, inspiration, and substance," she said. "Not just ads."

• MrBeast said his Amazon show "Beast Games" broke 40 world records.
• It comes amid allegations of poor conditions and a class-action lawsuit filed by some contestants.
• MrBeast finally addressed a lot of the accusations this week, but questions remain.

MrBeast said his upcoming $100 million Amazon reality show "Beast Games" broke 40 Guinness World Records.

"Guinness just dropped off some of the world records we broke while filming Beast Games lol," MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, wrote on X on Wednesday. "IM SO EXCITED TO DROP THIS SHOW IN 22 DAYS 🥰"

While he didn't reveal the full details of the records, he hinted at a few, including the largest cash prize in a game show, the most cables for a show, and the "largest island given away in a show."

It's not been smooth sailing

Donaldson, 26, is YouTube's biggest creator, with 332 million subscribers. He rose to fame with his ambitious stunts, including recreating Netflix's "Squid Game."

"Beast Games" is along the same vein, featuring at least 1,000 contestants.

Amazon has promoted it as "the world's largest live gameshow" with the "biggest single prize in the history of television and streaming" of $5 million.

Amazon announced the reality competition in March. It was supposed to kick-start Amazon's video ad sales efforts, attracting a wide audience and appealing to advertisers.

However, coverage of the show has not been entirely smooth sailing.

As well as complaints from contestants about inadequate living conditions, some have also said they were injured, not given access to hygiene products and medical care, and subjected to sexism in a New York Times report, and a class-action lawsuit five of them filed in September.

Amazon declined to comment on the lawsuit to BI. A spokesperson for Donaldson previously told BI that Amazon was not involved in the Las Vegas round of the show, where many of the allegations surfaced, which was "a promotional video shoot."

The spokesperson also said that this shoot was "unfortunately complicated by the CrowdStrike incident, extreme weather, and other unexpected logistical and communications issues."

Much of the rumors and allegations directed at Donaldson and the show went unanswered for months until Donaldson appeared on YouTube Oompaville's channel to address everything at once on November 23.

Donaldson said he could not address some of the allegations due to legal proceedings, but he described some of the claims about injuries on set as "disinformation."

Since then, Donaldson has also been more outspoken on his social media.

"We have tons of behind-the-scenes dropping when the show does to show how blown out of proportion these claims were," he wrote on X in response to a user who enquired about the "terrible conditions" on the show. "Just can't release it now because it would spoil the games."

None of the above has tempered production of "Beast Games," with Donaldson releasing a teaser on November 25, saying he had "poured everything I have into this show."

"I'll see you December 19th," he said, confirming the show's release date.

Future projects could be more difficult

Donaldson previously revealed he'd "spent way more than $100 million" on "Beast Games." He didn't clarify if this was the budget for one season, but the show has only been commissioned for one so far.

The move lines up with Amazon's strategy of increasing spending on entertainment and sports content, which "Beast Games" was supposed to be a benchmark for.

Donaldson has largely shrugged off bad press over the years, but partnering with a giant like Amazon has put more eyes on him than ever.

Creator economy experts previously told BI that "Beast Games" would not be going anywhere despite the negative headlines. But they warned that the top YouTuber may find it harder to fund his next big project because of the headache it caused Amazon.

"They'll still do partnerships with him," Diana D'Angelo, the CEO of Breaking Creatives Agency, told BI. "But maybe they'll put a bigger check on what he's actually doing and how it's being done."